“In mapping out its new work, the [Catechism] committee carefully observed the injunction to mind the Confession and early catechism. [The “early catechism” was abandoned; it was superseded by the Larger Catechism, and its abstract, the Shorter Catechism.] Notable was [Herbert] Palmer’s method of framing answers so that they did not depend “for their sense upon the foregoing questions.” [Footnote provides quotation’s reference, and also noting that “The Assembly’s Catechism postscript remarks: ‘So much of every Question both in the Larger and Shorter Catechism, is repeated in the Answer, as maketh every Answer an entire Proposition, or sentence in its self.'”] This innovation was carried over into the early catechisms and represented something of an advancement in catechizing technique. Now the learner could “improve it upon all occasions, for his increase in knowledge and piety, even out of the course of catechizing, as well as in it.” The Larger Catechism’s debt to the Confession is easily measured by the frequent recycling of phrases and even whole paragraphs. However, the Catechism also explored fresh areas by expanding on material covered in the Confession such as the fall, the covenants, the mediatorial office and life of Christ, and the benefits of redemption” (John R. Bower, The Larger Catechism: A Critical Text and Introduction, 19).